Is it accurate that 96% of players lose money?

[rj_montana]

Is it accurate that 96% of online poker players lose money? I have seen several users on this forum in several threads throwing this statistic around. I would like to know if there is any basis for it; what study or source is this 96% figure based on?

And if you do not agree, what do you figure the statistical breakdown is amongst winners, break even players and losers? Thanks! :five:

 

[kingofnaps]

it's probably 90-95% losing players. most players sit down to have fun are will be at an edge disadvantage vs the few winners. for every regular you see at the table often, there are so many players who you never even see because they deposited 100 bucks just to play 50 or 100nl for a couple hours until they lose their buyin, and so on.

 

[Psyanide14]

I believe it is probably higher. There a few players who play really well at their stakes and will make money. If you assume the reminder will break even over the long haul, they will still lose money because of the rake.

It’s more just for fun for most people and cheaper than a lot of other forms of entertainment.

Best of luck to you.

 

[mar_dragan]

Is it accurate that 96% of online poker players lose money? I have seen several users on this forum in several threads throwing this statistic around. I would like to know if there is any basis for it; what study or source is this 96% figure based on?

And if you do not agree, what do you figure the statistical breakdown is amongst winners, break even players and losers? Thanks! :five:

I didn't know this,this is very interesting,where you read this?

 

[Iryna Stryzheuskaya]

Play freerolls and you won’t lose.

 

[GioBonfante]

For now I am one of these 95% losers.
However I intend to be a good poker player, I'm watching several hours of pro players analyzing hands and explaining actions, I intend to start betting real money soon.But anyway I agree with you, the vast majority of players only LOSE and Lose, like a gamble..

 

[MishkaZL]

I'm not sure that 96% of players lose money. But I think 80% of them definitely lose.

 

[fundiver199]

The exact number is obvoiusly difficult to know among other things because of variance. But yeah it is probably only 5-10%, who are long term winners. Those 5-10% tend to play way more than average though. So when you play, you will be facing more than 5-10% opponents, who are long term winners. Or to put it another way: Fish tend to play for a while, lose for a while, and then most of them stop playing. A few takes the time and effort to improve their game, and then they become winning or break-even regulars.

 

[greatgame230]

I disagree with this statistic for two reasons:
1. the poker rooms their profit is due to the fact that they charge you to play in any way be it MTT, STT or Cash, so I remove it from the poker sites, now based on which parameters it happens that only 4% of the players make profit.
2 number of players who make profits in a session: this depends on the time invested by each player according to this statistic if 100 players enter at the same time and play the same amount of time only 4 will win money, this is almost impossible to determine at Unless it is done in isolation, I mean that only those 100 players can enter the poker room completely empty and that no one can enter to be able to make a certain measurement of how many of them won and lost. If it is in periods of time, it is also very variable and difficult to determine, which means that at the end and beginning of this year I was at 4% since I made profits and for a month and a half I have been at 96% since I lost money. .
It would be interesting to see this study and so maybe I can understand what they measure

 

[darthjewel]

I think that the number of positive players is less than 10 % , but only the employees of poker rooms know the real answer.

 

[dregan]

Thank goodness I am not a part of the losers. I try not to play at the cash tables. Well, except if it is necessary to get a ticket for the tournament for the promotion. In tournaments with entry, I rarely play, and then only with freeroll money.

 

[neptun1914]

I don't know if this figure is correct. Only poker rooms can tell how much of their clients are loosers and how much winners but they will never share this information because this will put off people from poker. Their interest is to show the glamorous side of the game so that new players are attracted all the time. I think that 96% is too much but anyway there are more loosing players than winners for sure and that is mainly because many people play the game for fun and without caring if they loose few $.

 

[rj_montana]

The exact number is obvoiusly difficult to know among other things because of variance. But yeah it is probably only 5-10%, who are long term winners. Those 5-10% tend to play way more than average though. So when you play, you will be facing more than 5-10% opponents, who are long term winners. Or to put it another way: Fish tend to play for a while, lose for a while, and then most of them stop playing. A few takes the time and effort to improve their game, and then they become winning or break-even regulars.

So if I'm reading correctly, you're suggesting that although 5-10% of the total pool of online poker players are long-term winners, at any given time when you are online the proportion of winners will be higher than 5-10%, because these players are over-represented in the sample of player traffic

 

[rj_montana]

I disagree with this statistic for two reasons:
1. the poker rooms their profit is due to the fact that they charge you to play in any way be it MTT, STT or Cash, so I remove it from the poker sites, now based on which parameters it happens that only 4% of the players make profit.
2 number of players who make profits in a session: this depends on the time invested by each player according to this statistic if 100 players enter at the same time and play the same amount of time only 4 will win money, this is almost impossible to determine at Unless it is done in isolation, I mean that only those 100 players can enter the poker room completely empty and that no one can enter to be able to make a certain measurement of how many of them won and lost. If it is in periods of time, it is also very variable and difficult to determine, which means that at the end and beginning of this year I was at 4% since I made profits and for a month and a half I have been at 96% since I lost money. .
It would be interesting to see this study and so maybe I can understand what they measure

I am also interested in seeing what type of study or player data the 96% statistic is based on. I certainly agree with you that if you just let 100 players loose for a few hours with x$ that more than 4 of them would come back with a profit. But clearly they are measuring this from a much longer time scale

 

[rj_montana]

I don't know if this figure is correct. Only poker rooms can tell how much of their clients are loosers and how much winners but they will never share this information because this will put off people from poker. Their interest is to show the glamorous side of the game so that new players are attracted all the time. I think that 96% is too much but anyway there are more loosing players than winners for sure and that is mainly because many people play the game for fun and without caring if they loose few $.

I agree with you which is why I asked at the outset, what study or sample is this 96% figure based on. Because it seems to me the only reliable data set from which we could draw these conclusions would come from pokerstars or another major provider, and I also don't see them making this data publicly available (perhaps there was a compelled disclosure?)

 

[stylebender72]

the percentage of winning players is 100% less than 10%, but no one knows the exact numbers...and its not important imo

 

[0546474]

I do not think that 96% of poker players lose money, as there is a large percentage of players who play at - 0 !!!

 

[Tox1cel]

Yes, and I'm one of The loosers

 

[Alex Sentsov]

Hardly anyone has such statistics...

 

[Maxmustdie]

I enter these 96% of losers

 

[venycyos]

Following very interested to find out the reality.

 

[Ranish625]

Is it accurate that 96% of online poker players lose money? I have seen several users on this forum in several threads throwing this statistic around. I would like to know if there is any basis for it; what study or source is this 96% figure based on?

And if you do not agree, what do you figure the statistical breakdown is amongst winners, break even players and losers? Thanks! :five:

I completely agree with this, only I would give 97 percent in favor of the losers

 

[CAC1QU3]

I think if I remember right there was a study from a German university, which bring their results based of calculation of rake and all that things (comparing cash game, SNG, MTT) and beeing only focussed on the server-user-view (not the complete business behind) and there it was if I remember me right around 98% of the players which will be losing players because of the maths behind.

It wouldn't surprise me if it's like that ...

 

[NWPatriot]

I have seen no specific study done on this subject, but with a little bit of scribbling on a napkin, I would think that only 3-5% of players are ahead after a long period of time.

Consider tournaments for a moment. It is known that only 10-15% of the players in any given tournament will get any money back at all. This does not yet make them long term winners. Then consider how often a player will cash. Very good players may cash more than 20% of the time. It is said that some pro tournament players cash 15-18% or the time, but these are likely very deep runs.

Tournaments are good to use for this assessment, because money is guaranteed to someone. In a cash game, there are no guaranteed winners - because of rake, it is possible that 10 players can move money around the table all night long and the only one that actually makes any money is the casino (unlikely but possible).

If we assume a group of players will play 100 x 100 player tournament with $100 buyin with 20% in fees with 15% player payout:

A player cashing 5% of the time cannot breakeven, even if they finish in first place those 5 times. A player cashing 10% of the time must finish in 3rd place all 10 times (or equivalent winnings) in order to breakeven. A player cashing 15% of the time must finish in 4th place (or equivalent winnings) all 15 times in order to breakeven.

The point of this is to illustrate just how difficult it is to be a winning player at poker. It is completely reasonable to assume that only 3-5% of the players are winners over the long term.

 

[MrPokerVerse]

I've heard most participants are losing rather than being a winning player. Never seen anything to corroborate that figure or any other one for that matter. Online can be tough with rake and sometimes the higher variance.